For the second straight week, a prominent member of the Bears was suspended for violating the NFL's performance-enhancing drugs rules. Starting linebacker, and the team's leading tackler, Jerrell Freeman was suspended for four games by the NFL on Monday.

Last week, it was receiver Alshon Jeffery who got the four-game suspension, which is unpaid.

So in two weeks, the Bears lost arguably their best offensive player and defensive player for PED violations. Someone call 21 Jump Street and get an undercover sting operation.

“I don’t think this is unique to the Bears,” Bears coach John Fox said Monday at Halas Hall. “It’s an issue everywhere in the league. That’s why we have drug testing in any professional sport or even Olympic sports. It happens, unfortunately.”

Bears inside linebacker Jerrell Freeman and outside linebacker Willie Young celebrate a goal line stand on fourth down against the Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field earlier this season. (Dan Powers/The Post-Crescent via USA TODAY Sports)

Fox said the team isn't taking this lightly, but it does show the organization is sloppy off the field, as well as on it. Shouldn't the Bears be better if their locker room is a den of PEDs?

After losing 22-16 to the New York Giants in New Jersey on Sunday, the Bears are 2-8 for the first time since 2002. The last two weeks, they've gotten embarrassed Sunday and ridiculed Monday.

What can Fox do about this epidemic? Not much, he says.

“I think much like anything, whether it’s DUIs or speeding tickets, I think people understand the rules, but they get broken,” Fox said Monday at Halas Hall. “That’s typically a player’s responsibility to know what they put in their body and we have pretty strict things while they’re in this building. But they do leave the building, usually around five o’clock every day.

“We take it very serious. We don’t accept it. I think we put a lot of time and money into governing it and watching over it. Like I said before, while they’re in this building. Unfortunately they don’t live here.”

Freeman immediately had a Twitter explanation and much like Jeffery did last week, Freeman said the positive test was a mistake. He signed a two-year deal worth a guaranteed $6 million before the season. His base salary is only $1 million this year.

So what happened? It's tough to say without hearing details from Freeman. Supplements can have misleading ingredient lists, but if this is prescription medication, did Freeman mishandle the clearance from the league?

“It’s a little surprising, but at the same time there’s a ton of things out there guys can take,” cornerback Tracy Porter said. “And there’s a process that guys can go through to get these things looked at. It definitely takes time. Some guys, they may believe that it’s not anything that’s going to harm their bodies. But at the same time, we have an extended list through the NFL that, if you looked at this list and seen the things that were banned substances, you’d be looking at it for days. So there’s different processes that guys can go through to get these things looked at and approved by the league. But unfortunately it still happens. It’s not purposely done. Guys may think, ‘Oh, it’s harmless.’ But in fact there may be this one thing from the banned substance list that we can’t use.”

While it's easy to blame the NFL for an unwieldy list of banned substances, Porter said there are some shortcuts.

“I mean, like I said, the number that the league provides you, you can call and talk to someone,” he said. “There’s even now, with the whole technology thing, there’s an app that you can use to scan a bar code and it can pull up as much information on what’s not allowed and what’s allowed that you can put in your body. But at the end of the day, we’re responsible for what we take.”

Along with fellow middle linebacker Danny Trevathan, Freeman was brought in to run the Vic Fangio's defense. A mainstay with the Colts defense, the 30-year-old Freeman was a rare bright spot in an otherwise dreary season. While he didn't have any takeaways, he did his job and had 69 solo tackles and 22 assisted tackles, both of which easily lead the team. But this news wasn't very nice to the Bears' hopes down the stretch.

“On the field, I mean, he’s the quarterback of our defense,” Porter said. “He gets us aligned. He’s a leading tackler on the team. he definitely a presence that’s going to be missed. But we have guys that are behind him, that study with him, that he mentors. So when those guys step up we’re going to look for them to fill that void.”

With a slew of injuries decimating the team's depth chart, it's hard to see this team winning three more games the rest of the season. If quarterback Jay Cutler is out for the season with a shoulder injury, a possibility that some speculated on Monday, then they might not win again.

The Bears did get some good news about rookie linebacker Leonard Floyd, who left the game on a stretcher and went to the hospital Sunday in New Jersey. Floyd is in the concussion protocol, Fox said, but otherwise just had neck soreness.

Freeman will be eligible to return for the team's final two games on Dec. 24 and Jan. 1. Until then, rookie linebacker Nick Kwiatkoski, who was drafted in the fourth round instead of quarterback Dak Prescott, should get a look at middle linebacker, along with John Timu.

Needless to say, the Bears won't be firing on their teammate while he's suspended.

“For me, I know what type of person Jerrell is,” offensive tackle Charles Leno said. “He made a mistake, he owned up to it and I forgive him. It's a loss that we're going to have on the defensive side of the ball, but that gives opportunities for guys like Nick to step up, so I'm excited to see Nick play this week if he gets the opportunity, and John Timu.”